I tend to overthink things. I’m not the guy who screams ‚This is a world smash!‘ when I finish a song.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self.

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‚yours,‘ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy – but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that’s how I am guided.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you’re criticizing God.

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion’s roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance.

I’ve learned that usually, the less I know about other people, the better off I am.

What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.

I think for my bones and my size, I better stay with my 60 kilo.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, a peaceful man.

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

I already am a product.

I was born with a great gift, and sometimes with that comes a destructive streak.

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

No, it’s not a very good story – its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.

I’m not the most patient of people.

No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that, everyone’s had enough of me to last a month.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

A daily portion is really all we need. We do not need tomorrow’s supply, for that day has not yet dawned, and its needs are still unborn.

Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don’t mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.

I’m very secure about my talents and about who I am.

The self is hateful.

I think and that is all that I am.

My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation, but I’m working on the foundation.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I’m working on the foundation.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.

No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart.

We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.

We are all at times unconscious prophets.

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.

To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.